As a caveman living in the stone age without any form of smartphone or tablet, I am pleased to say I have found a way to run the app on Windows and Mac. Simply install Blue Stacks, a completely legal Android emulator.

bluestacks.com

Works great on my laptop and I'm excited to try it out when I test the game in a week or so!

As a caveman living in the stone age without any form of smartphone or tablet, I am pleased to say I have found a way to run the app on Windows and Mac. Simply install Blue Stacks, a completely legal Android emulator.

bluestacks.com

Works great on my laptop and I'm excited to try it out when I test the game in a week or so!

My guess is, that FFG doesn't want to get into the Windows/Mac application development arena… That is not their expertise or part of their business. While some people may see full blown computer operating system applications as a great fit for table top RPG, it is really a horribly huge animal to control… Take for example any of the VTT systems (like Fantasy Grounds) or commercial character builder applications (like Hero Builder), those companies are 100% invested in application development, the amount of time and effort these companies spend on making their applications run smoothly is tremendous and they have a very limited market. FFG has basically a zero presence in computer application development, in order for them to develope a computer application, they would have to hire people to program said applications, which takes lots of money.

The dice rolling app for smartphones as has been suggested before is easier to update when and if they make changes to the dice system, it is easier to sell to the targeted audience, and has an entry point $ that is attractive enough that people will click to purchase. It is also more than likely a modified version of their WHFRPG dice rolling application and it has the draw of the X Wing miniature game as well as basic dice rolling… Trending also points to the fact that pretty much all phones going forward will be smartphones and tablets will be the future of everyday computing, it would be like Sony investing in a new physical media player like DVDs or CDs when everything is oing digital, it doesn't make good business sense.

Investment (I) = Time + Money

X = money company makes from sale of product or service

Y = set amount of $$$ that company determines would make their product or service profitable enough to produce

ROI = Return on Investment = What company makes in $$$ for making and investment, when successful expressed as I + X => Y

IF I + X < Y THEN STOP = The point where a company says we can't make this product or service and make money

Windows platform application for RPGs = I + X < Y

Take all of that with a healthy does of salt or sugar, whichever makes it easier to swallow ;-)

You know, you've laid the problem out logically, and used some very logical math, and I should just go "well, he laid out the logic and used logical math, so he's probably right" and leave it at that…

But there are a couple of things that niggle at me:

1) There is NO WAY a Windows Dice App would be anywhere near as complex as Fantasy Grounds or Hero Builder. I mean, almost to the point of apples and oranges here. So, IMO, yer not gonna need anymore people to program for THIS than you would for a smartphone. This is the same problem I have when you talk about how much time, money and hassle it would be for FFG to do something some other company does (if I may paraphrase) "better and full time". I could very much buy that, except that, AGAIN, and not to belabor the point. SOMEBODY did it for the smartphones.

2) We would buy the damned thing. Why is it so easy to believe that a smartphone user will buy a five dollar app but a PC user won't? We do it all the time. Hell, a lot of us will pay sometimes fifty times that much for a foll blown program. We'll certainly pay five or six times that much for a video game. I just don't get it.

So, your formula, while logical, is predicated on information that simply doesn't ring true - and certainly doesn't take into account how many people won't (or in this case haven't, cuz they're not selling the Beta anymore) bother to buy the Beta because without dice, it's more work that it's worth. See, that's where it gets tricky because most people will tell you that you have no way to guage a negative. "We can't know who MIGHT have bought the game because they didn't" My opionion on that is that you don't need to overthink it. How many people would have bought the game if it had proper dice and/or a dice program for Windows too? MORE. More people buying = more money.

Now we also have to account for the people who will get frustrated and not bother to buy the finished product. This should be an important number for FFG, PARTICULARLY because they chose to begin creating their Star Wars RPG without any "Wars" part. No rebels, no Empire, no Clones, no Republic and while you can play force users, playing Jedi isn't what the Devs had in mind for this core book…basically you get to play the guys we see face down in their blue milk during the Canteena Scene in A New Hope. Kinda like a sci-fi version of the movie "******" - your character's CHARACTER becomes more important than her cause. Attractive to some, to be sure. Hell, perhaps even attractive to many, but nowhere near as attractive as if the "Wars" part of Star Wars had been added in.

So, equation or not, for a company that wants to make money, they're sure excluding a large-ish number of people early on.

How many people would have bought the game if it had proper dice and/or a dice program for Windows too? MORE. More people buying = more money.

Corradus said:

Except that they sold out of their entire print run. So they sold every copy they expected to. On that data point, I can conclude that not releasing dice or a windows dice roller had exactly zero effect on their sales.

More generally, I don't see the issue. Where I am, you're far more likely to see a smartphone or tablet at the gaming table than a laptop. In fact, out of 10 players in my two regular RPGs, I think there are two who don't bring either a tablet or a smartphone to the table, and at least 4 who always have their tablet on the table during play (to access character sheets, dice rollers, reference docs). Only one brings or uses a laptop, and that is only very occasionally used (to play opening crawls for SW). That trend is only going to increase, not decrease, so FFG have made exactly the right business decision, IMO, licencing issues aside.

In the end. I won't buy the app until they have it available for the Kindle. It may only be $5, but I bet I'm one of hundreds that are in the same situation.

And no, I don't want to download - jailbreak - or do any other odd ball software update to get a app to work on my Kindle. My Kindle works fine and hopefully FFG will see the value in getting this app for said users.